MELLORS AND PROTON IRIZ R5 MOVE UP INTO BRC FOR 2020
Further Tarmac running the goal for both driver and car this season
Ollie Mellors will return to the British Rally Championship in 2020 at the wheel of a Proton Iriz R5, which he believes is a natural stepping-stone in his career.
The 24-year-old has spent the past three seasons competing with the
Iriz – which has been developed by his father Chris’s company Mellors Elliot Motorsport – and is keen to see where he and the car stack up against the best in the country.
Nine drivers so far have signed up to the top BRC1 class for next month’s season-opening Cambrian Rally including reigning champion Matt Edwards, Osian Pryce, Josh Mcerlean and Junior World Rally Championship refugee Tom Williams.
Although 2018 Cambrian winner Mellors admitted he’s “not putting pressure on himself ” to win, the aim is to be competitive and mix it at the very front.
“I’d like to think that we can be competitive but I don’t want to make a fool of myself on the first stage just trying to be quickest through the stage,” Mellors told Motorsport News. “So I think we’re going to kind of judge it by ear and see how we get on in the first few stages and then go from there.
“I want to just go out there and go fast, basically, I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to say I’ll settle for fifth on this event; the aim is to go as fast as possible and see what we can do against the others. We know the car’s good, it’s just whether I can perform!”
Mellors last competed in the BRC back in 2016 in a Proton S2000 and hasn’t done a full rallying programme since as the Iriz R5 underwent its development. When assessing options for 2020, the BRC strongly appealed to him.
“The BRC is the right step forwards for us in terms of what we can achieve at the moment,” Mellors added.
“There’s just such a wide variety of events [so] I think it could be quite good [for me]. I’ve not done any Tarmac since 2016 and the championship is for the majority on Tarmac. Last year we kind of said that we wanted to do some more Tarmac events so it’s kind of like ‘might as well do it’ and learn [them] while putting ourselves up against the best out there.”